St. Valentine's Day Massacre
"Bugs" Moran Gang Murdered by Rival Capone Gang
Feb 12, 2008 Jacqueline T Lynch
February 14, 1929, men from the rival Chicago gangs headed by Al Capone and George “Bugs” Moran met in a Chicago garage. The gruesome slaying that occurred here is known as “The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.”
Despite the sensationalist title, the massacre did not enter Chicago folklore immediately, not until the significance of the event became known. It precipitated the eventual end of the two rival gangs, and the closure on the careers of both Moran and Capone, but neither man was actually involved in the slayings.
Bugs Moran tried on several occasions to assassinate Al Capone. A member of Capone’s gang, “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn, planned a scheme to kill Moran instead, and Capone gave him permission to carry on under his own auspices.
McGurn hired gunmen, and dressed them as Chicago police officers and police detectives, even disguising two vehicles as police cars. He lured Moran with a business deal involving the sale of bootleg liquor, the local control of which had been a point of contention between Capone and Moran.
Moran and his men were to meet McGurn in Moran’s rented garage on North Clark Street. When one of Moran’s men, who resembled Moran, the chief target, was mistaken for him by lookouts, the plan went into action.
McGurn’s phony “police officers” arrived in official-looking cars, entered the garage, surprising six of Moran’s men, including Frank and Pete Gusenberg, safecracker John May, saloonkeeper Albert R. Weinshank, bank robber James Clark, who was also Moran’s brother-in-law, and Adam Heyer, a racketeer. A Dr. Reinhart H. Schwimmer was also killed, who was not directly involved in Moran’s gang.
McGurn’s “cops” were Fred “Killer” Burke, John Scalise, Albert Anselmi, Joseph Lolorado, and James Ray. They stormed the garage as if conducting a police raid, surprised Moran’s men, ordered them to raise their hands and drop their weapons. When they complied, expected to be frisked by the “police,” McGurn’s men shot them against the wall of the garage, execution style.
Meanwhile, Bugs Moran, who had arrived late to the meeting, saw what he thought were police cars parked outside the garage. Fearing arrest, he immediately left the scene. McGurn’s clever plan to impersonate police in attempt to kill Moran is what ironically saved Moran’s life.
When the real police were summoned to the site, they found the remains of slaughter, and a mystery. Not one of McGurn’s men would ever be tried for the crime.
Bugs Moran, questioned by the police, aimed his suspicion at Al Capone, though Capone was currently in Florida. McGurn presented the police with a now famous alibi, his girlfriend, who he had suddenly married so she, as his wife, could not testify against him. He was released, with charges dropped.
The aftermath of the crime is represented by the subsequent fortunes of the killers. Among them, Capone went to prison for tax evasion, and later died of syphilis, made demented first by the disease. Bugs Moran went to prison for an earlier bank robbery, and died there. Both Anselmi and Scalise were involved in a later betrayal of Capone. Both were later beaten savagely to death with a baseball bat, it is presumed by Capone.
Burke was sentenced to life in prison for another murder, that of a police officer. The mastermind of the massacre, “Machine Gun” McGurn, had an ironic end. His alibi-wife eventually left him, and the day before Valentine’s Day 1936, he was shot to death in a Chicago bowling alley by two gunmen. It was said his killing was revenge for the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
Sources:
Laurence Bergreen, Capone (NY: Simon & Schuster) 1994.
Allan May, “Chicago’s Unione Scicilliana - 1920s - A Decade of Slaughter.”
http://crimemagazine.com/chicago4.htm
Marilyn Bardsley (http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters_outlaws/mob_bosses/moran/day_7.html)
Ethan Mordden, That Jazz! (NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons) 1978.
What do you think about this article?
More in History
Latest Articles